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Eight years ago today, an RC plane became the first to fly across the Atlantic
- iqster 15y agoI am highly skeptical. 1) 1 litre of fuel doesn't get you that far. 2) Was the entire course programmed into the plane? This is non-trivial given that high winds would likely push a small little plane off course. 3) Article claims that GPS telemetry was sent continuously. What did they use? Wifi doesn't work. There are no cell towers in the ocean. The only option that could remotely work is satellite data. That costs a fortune and has heavy equipment. #3 is the big one. EDIT: I am still skeptical but less so after reading the child comments. It seems HAM radio was used to relay telemetry. Communicating with a tiny moving object via HAM still seems a bit unbelievable. But I don't know enough on this subject. Also, the craft was supposedly using auto pilot over the Atlantic. I don't see how it is an RC craft ... perhaps a UAV would be a more appropriate term. Anyways, upvoting child posts for a stimulating early morning thought exercise :)
- palish 15y agoHere's a smidgen of info: http://tam.plannet21.com/FAQs.htm#electronics http://tam.plannet21.com/FAQs.htm#electronics
- ovi256 15y ago1 litre of fuel could work with an engine that has a cylinder of a few cm3. Telemetry was probably by HAM radio or something similar. Nothing fancy like WiFi or satellite.
- justincormack 15y agoIt wasnt continuous telemetry from memory, just once an hour. The power consumption would have been huge otherwise. Cant remember how they were transmitting, but probably radio, which is why they didnt get the signal for 3 hours. Also remember the wind is behind you flying that way across the atlantic. Helps a huge amount in terms of power required.
- jodrellblank 15y agoprobably radio, which is why they didnt get the signal for 3 hours. What? Were they two billion miles away?
- gravitronic 15y agoSlightly OT, but a former coworker of mine flew gliders as a hobby. Like an ultralight airplane without an engine, they get towed up to 10000 sq ft and then glide. Guess how long they can stay in the air? Hours. Gliders stay afloat by finding hot air streams where clouds are forming, riding the plume up, then gliding to the next cloud. It's not what this RC plane was doing, obviously, but posting it as an example showing how fuel can be irrelevant in the air. It's also an amazing hobby for one to have. He has all sorts of stories about the weather changing and having to crash in a farmer's field...
- pavel_lishin 15y agoMy father and stepbrother used to do this as well. Lots of interesting stories came out of it - having a heart-attack five thousand feet up, landing in a farmer's field and convincing him to put down the shotgun...
- edge17 15y agosounds interesting, care to share more of the story? :)
- yardie 15y ago1) once you are at altitude engines are amazingly efficient. I still can't believe 1 liter got them across the Atlantic, but 100s of km, definitely. 2) Decades before GPS there was gyroscopic navigation. There has been autopilot for RC planes since as far as I can remember, for me the 90s. 3) There are many other radio bands available besides 2.4GHz. And satellite is not the only option. You have packet radio, marine radio, and HAM (amateur radio).
- coin 15y agoYou know there is wireless communications other than cell and satellite.
- ArbitraryLimits 15y agoI've been in the testing labs of InSitu, the company which makes the logical descendent of the Aerosonde (ScanEagle). I'm a software guy, and know nothing about engines, but tacked onto the door was a reminder that each paper clip's worth of weight that was shaved off the vehicle extended its range by something like 50 km.
- runjake 15y ago3) Article claims that GPS telemetry was sent continuously. What did they use? Wifi doesn't work. There are no cell towers in the ocean. The only option that could remotely work is satellite data. That costs a fortune and has heavy equipment. They probably used amateur packet radio to transmit telemetry. I suppose it may be hard to believe if you're not a ham, but this is a rather common usage scenario, even over long distances.
- Groxx 15y agoThe numbers for 1 litre of fuel don't really add up, either. They said the flight took ~38 hours, but when it landed it had ~ 2 ounces of fuel left, which would have "[left] it less than an hour left before it would have crashed". ~34 ounces per liter, ~2(+) ounces per hour, implies >2 liters for the flight. The speeds are about right, though: 1800 miles/55mph=33 hours, /42 = 43 hours.
- Tichy 15y agoIf it was remote controlled, how did it survive the 3 hours without contact?
- brohee 15y agoFrom http://tam.plannet21.com/FAQs.htm#guidance http://tam.plannet21.com/FAQs.htm#guidance it was a GPS driven autopilot
- Tichy 15y agoSo it wasn't really a RC plane :-) Very cool stuff.
- DanLivesHere 15y agoIt was RC controlled on takeoff and landing, and switched to/from GPS-navigation over the Atlantic.
- fr0sty 15y agoby that metric commercial airliners are not HC (human controlled) planes either as they do >90% of their flying while on autopilot.
- eftpotrm 15y agoWell... Within the colloquial definition, the plane is of a class known as 'RC planes' - it's of a size and general design pattern that is conventionally controlled by a ground based radio pilot, it couldn't be used for carrying passengers, goods or weapons. For very sensible techincal reasons it had to run on autopilot for much of its journey, but the vehicle itself was still undeniably a member of the class colloquially known as 'RC planes'. By analogy, let's suppose I purchased a retired F1 racing car for whatever purpose. I don't have the entries, licenses and any of a number of other things to enter it into FIA sanctioned F1 races, but does that stop it from being an F1 car while it's not being used for F1 races?
- baddox 15y ago
- btc_man 15y agoThis is all possible with open source Arduino hardware, and software. GPS, autopilot all possible with commercially available components. Why would it require heavy equipment? GPS modules are small. http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ardupilot-main-page http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ardupilot-main-page
- adatta02 15y agoI read this an hour or so ago, it's from http://dlewis.net/nik http://dlewis.net/nik which is a surprisingly good email newsletter
- jxcole 15y agoI remember reading about this a while back. Sadly, said plane was not considered for a world record because the RC community felt that even though it only used auto pilot for the in-air part, only RC planes that were remote controlled for the entire voyage should be considered for records.
- ajays 15y agoWho cares if it was actively RC or not?!? It's still quite an achievement that the plane could fly autonomously across the Atlantic. Imagine that: in less than 100 years since the Wright Brothers took off, we have a hobbyist autonomous plane that flies across the Atlantic. That's a huge achievement nevertheless.
- kragen 15y agoThis was an autopilot flight, not an RC flight. This was not the first unmanned autopilot flight across the Atlantic; that was Laima, five years earlier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insitu_Aerosonde http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insitu_Aerosonde Laima took 26 hours and 5.7 liters of fuel. Her three sisters didn't make it across the ocean.
- lotharbot 15y agoThis was an autopilot flight with some RC portions. Laima also included RC for takeoff and landing. http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/insitu-areosonde-laima http://www.museumofflight.org/aircraft/insitu-areosonde-laim... (She's a pretty bird. If you're in Seattle on the first Thursday of the month, you can see her free from 5-9 PM.)
- kragen 15y agoYes, that is a more accurate description. Thanks for the pointer!
- danielharan 15y agoThese kinds of planes would be handy for moving small amounts of contraband...
- ChuckMcM 15y ago:-) This is what keeps DEA agents up at night I suppose.
- DanLivesHere 15y agoHere's a video of the plane's arrival in Ireland and its landing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KEIq76JE7o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KEIq76JE7o